The Industrial Athlete: Rethinking How We Protect Workers' Bodies

Worker Memorial Day coming up.

I encourage everyone to participate in Worker Memorial Day, always do.

I particularly find it moving to read the names of those who have passed in the line of work in the past year.

But we've got some new data out of CPWR and it's not good.

Workers at construction companies with 10 or fewer employees.

represented 42.4% of the construction industry's deaths in 2022.

Hmm.

So almost half the deaths in construction are in companies with less than 10 or fewer employees.

Yeah.

I mean, I can give you

a few reasons I think that probably is because, you know, I work in construction.

And usually the guys with less people are scurrying around trying to keep the jobs that they bid.

And sometimes they cut corners.

to go a little faster.

And I see a lot of trenching collapses, which we'll talk on the next show, we'll talk about.

But I see a lot of trench collapses, a lot of not using shoring where they should or trench boxes and a lot of falls.

Here's a supplemental data to that.

In companies with 11 and 19 employees, 8.1% of the deaths during the same year.

So if you add 42 and eight together, that gets you to 50.

Over 50% of the deaths in the construction industry are companies less than 20 employees.

A little bit shocking.

A little bit shocking.

Not unsurprising, though.

Small companies are challenged.

If you're a safety professional listening to us or you're a consultant that works with these small companies, we understand what the challenges are.